The Five Stages
by dangerous-andhereyouare
Summary: Post-Reichenbach: John and Sherlock have to get to know each other again (while facing previously unmentioned romantic feelings), while their collective struggles the past three years bubble to the surface, and they learn what the other had to deal with while they've been apart.


**I am not a huge fan of post-Reichenbach stories, so it's fairly ironic that I'm writing one. Regardless, I was just doing some free-writing, and it amounted to something, so I thought I'd put it here. It'll be five parts (for the five stages of grief), and it shouldn't take too long. I wrote this bit fairly quickly. There's nothing terribly special about this piece, pretty run-of-the-mill. I just haven't written fanfiction in a really long time, but I have some cool Johnlock ideas that I'd like to play with, so I thought I'd get my feet wet again with a simple story, and then go from there. This will eventually turn into Johnlock, so know that, and there will be triggering stuff later on, but I'll be sure to warn you beforehand. Of course comments are welcome. Don't be too harsh, this isn't that serious of a project, but constructive criticism never hurt anyone.**

**Happy reading! :D**

Denial

John just finished the shopping and is trying to hail a cab with bags of groceries hanging from his wrists. He probably could have walked—he doesn't buy much at the store anymore so it's not like they're too heavy—but his leg has been giving him trouble these days, and, more than anything, he doesn't _want_ to. So with plastic bags swinging, he sticks out his arm to catch the attention of a cabbie, who promptly passes him by. John has about three seconds to be frustrated before an expensive black car, windows tinted, pulls up to the curb where he's standing. His frustration immediately turns to annoyance, as a woman he's never seen before rolls down her window on the passenger side, and says, "Get in, Dr. Watson."

Every impulse in John's body tells him to run, to get away, that he can't do this now, but he doesn't. He is simply too damn tired to do anything but sigh heavily, throw his groceries in first, and crawl into the backseat saying, "Mycroft better be brief, I've got perishables in those."

He doesn't recognize the location. It's an old building that fits Mycroft's flair for dramatics. The driver parks and John follows the woman inside. He doesn't need to be told—it's been a while, but he knows the drill. Mycroft is standing outside a closed door near the entrance, hands clasped behind his back, an unreadable-yet-still-smug expression plastered on his face.

"John," he says formally.

"Been a while," John says back, eyeing the place. The ceilings are too high, he notes. Some people get uncomfortable in closed-in spaces, but John gets nervous in ones that are too spacious. That's why he never actually complained much about the mess in 221B—or, well, why he never meant it. It was cluttered and cramped and perfect, but John doesn't think about 221B, so he focuses his attention back on Mycroft.

"Nearly two years in fact," he's saying, and it's quite true. The last time they had seen each other (face to face, that is, of course John knows Mycroft is always watching) Mycroft had actually shown up at John's new flat, unannounced, just to see how he was holding up. John said he was fine, and the two sat in complete silence for five minutes before Mycroft stood and left with nothing but a curt nod. "You look well," he adds, and he's lying, because John's appearance doesn't resemble anything close to "well." In fact, he most closely resembles a wreck. He's getting up there in years, sure, but the gray of his hair and the dark circles under his eyes make him look at least ten years older than he is. He also can't remember if he changed his shirt this morning or if he's wearing the one he slept in. Frankly he doesn't care.

"What do you want, Mycroft?" He knows he sounds defeated. Normally he puts on a bit more of a fight during these abductions, but he can't help it. That's just how his voice sounds nowadays.

"I've something to show you," Mycroft says carefully. "I'm afraid it might startle you."

"What are you talking about?" John asks, confused. He can't think of a thing in the world that Mycroft could do right now that could evoke much emotion out him. Because he's taken to staying in a fairly constant state of _numb_, it takes a lot to get John riled up. Besides, how bad could it be? It's probably a case file of a brutal murder, John reasons, maybe some crime that's a remnant of Mori-, well, of _him _and_ his _organizations. It's only speculation, and he's wondering why Mycroft feels the need to show him when he knows John isn't going to help. He should know this from experience. One day, eight months prior, John received a text, reading,

_Need help with something resembling a case._

_I am aware you are not him._

_You are, however, the next best thing._

_Will you come?_

_MH_

To which John had replied,

_No_.

_JW_

In the back of his mind, John wondered if Mycroft had had another root canal, or had simply concluded (correctly) that John couldn't bear to talk in person with him anymore. Either way it didn't matter. Lestrade had tried the same thing, about six months after, well, _after_.

_Murder case, completely stumped._

_Can you come?_

_L_

_I think you're forgetting _

_that I'm not him._

_JW_

_Not forgetting._

_Still, having you is better than nothing._

_Please, John?_

_L_

_I owe you no favors, Detective Inspector._

_Looks like you'll have to do your job yourself._

_For once. Best of luck._

_JW_

That was, of course, back during the time when John still blamed Lestrade, and him asking John for help was like a knife in the side. They had since settled their differences—meaning John had accepted Lestrade's existence and could now tolerate it—and Lestrade started acting like a real detective, and though he solved less cases, he didn't ask John for his help anymore.

Point being, there was no reason for Mycroft to think John would offer up any of his services. It has been three years since he ever stepped foot inside a crime scene, and he has no intention of starting back up now. He's a doctor, he goes to work at the surgery, he comes home, and drinks until he falls asleep. Mycroft knows this. Mycroft is daft to think any of that is going to change because of something he has to show John.

"It's not a case file," Mycroft says, reading and interrupting John's thoughts.

Oh, he thinks.

"What is it, then?"

Mycroft clears his throat in a way that sounds, if John didn't know any better, _nervous_. "I've debated about whether I should brace you, but after much deliberation, I've decided to let you, 'see for yourself' as it were." He puts a hand on the door handle, gives John a look. "Ready?"

"Since I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be ready for," John says irritably. "I've not got a clue."

Mycroft takes this to mean yes, and opens the door. Instead of going in, he pokes his head in and says softly, "He's ready for you now."

There is a moment of inaction while the sound of shuffling comes from somewhere in the room. Then there are footsteps on solid floor. Then someone steps over the threshold, and John suddenly recants any thought he had about this not evoking a strong reaction. His shock is textbook, the way his eyes widen, his jaw slackens, and his forehead creases. Somewhere in his throat his breath hitches, and he can feel his heart pounding against his ribcage.

He looks so _different_. Thinner, if that's even possible, but still impeccably dressed in a button up shirt and dress slacks. Improbably, his cheekbones are ever more razor sharp than before, protruding from his face like built-in weapons. His hair is longer, the curls hanging all the way down to a little past his chin, still dark as night say for a few silver hairs. He looks so different, but there is no mistaking him. John searches his face for any indication that this is some sick joke, some impersonation to put John on, but that's not possible. Mycroft doesn't play practical jokes, funny or cruel, and look at those eyes. No one could replicate eyes like that.

Even still, John chokes out a barely audible, "Not possible." The tiniest of smirks appears on the man's face at this. Knees weakening underneath him, John feels like jelly. He's reminded of semtex being ripped off his torso and then collapsing on the floor. He wonders if that's what's going to happen now.

"Hello, John," the man says, and his voice is the answer. Losing all sense of balance, John tumbles to the ground, literally knocked of his feet by the voice of Sherlock Holmes.

0000000

The first three weeks after Sherlock's death were the easiest because John refused to believe that Sherlock was actually dead.

Sure, he put on a front, crying so often that he was beginning to convince _himself _that he was mourning the loss of his best friend, but deep down he had known that someone so spectacular couldn't simply _die_. If anyone could jump off the top of St. Bart's and live, it was Sherlock Holmes, and even though no one else believed it, John knew. What did other people know, anyhow? People talk, and do little else. They talk about Rich Brook, and fake geniuses, and shameful suicides, but people don't actually _know_ anything. Certainly not anything about John's consulting criminal.

Every morning, John got up, same as he always did, made tea, and poured two cups, until he reminded himself that Sherlock hadn't come home yet. Occasionally he would send texts saying,

_Made you tea again._

_It's getting cold._

_Sure what you're doing is important._

_Still, anytime you're ready to come home._

_I'll be here._

_JW_

The lack of reply didn't worry him one bit, because Sherlock is Sherlock, and Sherlock forgets to do things when he's solving a case or thinking too hard, and not texting back was not always a priority. So John would simply pour the full cup of tea down the sink (he never drank it—too sweet for him, the way Sherlock liked it), and go about his business.

"Are you sure you're alright dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked him over and over again.

"Yes, I'm fine, of course I'm fine." _Why wouldn't I be_, he didn't add. _He's not dead._

"You poor thing, you look famished!" she said to him one evening, bustling about the kitchen, trying to scrap together something for him to eat. "You know I wouldn't normally do this, but given the circumstances—oh you poor dear. When was the last time you ate?"

"Tuesday," John said, after a moment's thought, and Mrs. Hudson let out a squeal.

"But it's Thursday!" she exclaimed, and John shrugged.

"I'm sure Sherlock hasn't eaten anything either, so I'm waiting for him to get back. It's a lot easier to get him to eat if I'm eating too." John didn't realize he had said that out loud until he noticed that Mrs. Hudson had dropped a glass on the floor and it had shattered. Her hand was over her mouth. "I'm sorry," he amended quickly. "I forgot that you think he's, or, well, I mean…" he didn't know what to say, and his fumbling with words only seemed to make it worse, as Mrs. Hudson let out a small noise that sounded suspiciously sob-like.

"You've nothing in your fridge," she said, stammering, not dropping her hand. "I'll get you take-away, how's Italian sound?" She didn't really wait for an answer. She hurried out of the room, and John heard her crying in the hallway, and mentally patted himself on the back for not adding,

"Would you mind getting extra, just in case he comes home tonight?"

In the end, what had convinced him that Sherlock actually _was_ dead was something unexpected.

In the middle of the night, three weeks after, they had put up the gravestone, John was woken up by nothing. He jolted awake, tangled up in blankets, to the sound of nothing but silence. He was so used to being roused out of bed at ungodly hours of the night by the sound of Sherlock thinking on his violin, that to wake up at the same time and hear _nothing_ unnerved him.

He crept down the stairs to the sitting room where he saw Sherlock's violin case sitting right where he had left it near the couch. Barefooted, he padded over and snapped it open. His stomach dropped to see the instrument lying there, looking beautiful, right where it was supposed to be with the bow placed beside it with precision.

He hadn't thought about it before. Maybe he had supposed that Sherlock had taken the violin and left the case, or maybe he simply hadn't noticed that it was there in the first place, he wasn't sure. The only thing he was sure of, was that Sherlock would never be able to go this long, three whole weeks, without playing his violin—especially if John wasn't there to talk things through with. He would have needed it to think with.

If he had left his violin, truly just left it lying in the sitting room, then that body John saw hoisted on the stretcher that horrid afternoon, must have been just that—a body. Not his consulting detective, secretly planning on rising from the dead. It was a corpse. It was Sherlock Holmes's corpse.

Sitting down and crossing his legs, John picked up the bow, as gently as he had seen done countless times, and held in his lap, as he cried his first real tears over the death of his friend.

0000000

In the beginning, it had been easy for Sherlock to be away from John, because he didn't actually notice John wasn't there.

"We need to go about this logically. It's like a tower of blocks, if we take the one right in the middle, the whole thing will go tumbling down. We'll need to figure out Moriarty's system before we go about shooting off any guns," he said to John in his empty hotel room. He was too preoccupied with the new project to remember that he had left John Watson behind.

"Here, I made you some coffee," Molly said to him the day after he had died. She was keeping him hidden from the world until he figured out his next move. "Two sugars, just how you like it."

"Thank you, John," Sherlock said, and Molly didn't have the heart to correct him.

Four days after he had died, Sherlock was sitting on Molly's couch while she watched crap telly. "Dunno why you rot your brain with such rubbish," he said absently. "You could be brilliant, John, if you would just stop filling your head with useless information. Why do it?"

Molly, who was still slightly tickled at the idea of having the man she adored watching television with her in her flat (though, she admitted, the circumstances could be better), couldn't think of anything to say, except, "Haven't the faintest, Sherlock."

Living a lie was a lot easier, but Sherlock caught on a lot faster than John had, but wasn't that usually the way?

Three days after watching his doctor cry over him in the graveyard, Sherlock, on his last night hiding in Molly's flat before shipping himself off to America under a false identity, had said, "Pass me a piece of paper, John," and after about an hour, he reached in his coat pocket for his phone, only to remember that he had tossed it on the roof of St. Bart's, and he wasn't going to get a new one until he got to New York City.

John wouldn't know his number anymore, and even though Sherlock could rattle John's off by heart (and John really should have appreciated what a feat that was, because he usually deleted such things), he reminded himself that he wasn't to use it. He couldn't text John, because John couldn't know he was alive, because that would ruin everything. And then he felt sick to his stomach, because if John thought that he was actually dead, then he hadn't been there that whole time, and he wouldn't be there until Sherlock took down Moriarty's whole network.

And who knew how long that could take?

Suddenly, Sherlock's mind felt way too busy, too many thoughts firing at once. He couldn't stop seeing every single crumb Molly had dropped on her table from her breakfast toast that morning, and all the cat hairs that stuck out on the couch cushions, and his fingers ached for his violin. He looked for it for ten seconds, before remembering that he had left it at Baker Street.

Sherlock had been alone nearly all of his life, but he never felt as lonely as he did right then.

0000000

"John, are you alright?" Sherlock's voice says. Hands, very familiar hands, grab him at the pit of his arms and try to lift him up. John attempts to steady himself, but the room keeps spinning.

"Let's bring him in here," Mycroft says from somewhere, and suddenly he is lifting up John's feet, and the two brothers carry the doctor into the other room and lay him down on a couch. For a moment John just stares at the ceiling, before lifting himself up very carefully, and looking to see where Mycroft is standing. Beside him, Sherlock is still there, having not disappeared as some sort of horrible hallucination (which is good, because John was quite sick of those, but bad because how is this possible?), and he's looking at John rather stoically.

"Hello again," Sherlock tries, but John shakes his head.

"You're dead," he counters, and both brothers sigh.

"Obviously, I'm not," Sherlock says, taking a chair and moving across from the couch. He sits in it so they can look straight across at one another.

"Don't tell me that," John says. "I watched you jump. You _made_ me watch."

"I know, I'm sorry, but it was necess—"

"It has been three years," John interrupts, calmly at first.

"Yes," Sherlock agrees.

"Three years."

"I am aware."

"Three _fucking_ years, Sherlock, and you're telling me you've been _alive_ this _entire_ time?!"

"There's no need to shout," Mycroft scoffs, but John ignores him. He sits up all the way and glares at Sherlock, who just looks back expressionless. It is infuriating.

"Say something. Say something to defend yourself, for Christ's sake."

"I did it to protect you," Sherlock says simply.

"_Protect_ me? Do you know what my life has been like? Do you know the things I've…" John trails off, shaking his head.

"If you give me time to explain—"

"No," John says decisively, getting to his feet. "No, no, no, I can't deal with this."

Sherlock swallows. "John—"

"You're too late, Sherlock. You are _three years_ too late to come to me with this. I can't—I just—damnit! I was finally starting to get used to you not being around, Sherlock. You can't do this to me now." He stands up, walks to the door, and hates how badly he's limping. It hurts, but he strides through.

"John, be reasonable here, I know this comes as a shock," Mycroft is saying.

"Piss off," John hisses. He's not sure where he's going—maybe just to go get some air, maybe to run away and pretend this never happened—he's not sure. All he knows is that the ceiling is starting to suffocate him, and he would like very much to be anywhere but here. He's about out of the room, when Sherlock says, a bit frantically (and admittedly, it's nice to hear some emotion),

"John, they would have killed you."

John pauses, just for a moment, to look over his shoulder, right into the eyes of his resurrected consulting detective, and say, "After what I've been through these past three years, Sherlock? I would have preferred to die."


End file.
